Let’s start with the story behind the Gentileschi’s painting of Judith Slaying Holofernes. The Israeli city of Bethulia was under siege by Assyrians led by General Holofernes (first name; Jim). Judith enters the enemy camp, pretending to be a turncoat. The Assyrians figure it’s cool because she’s beautiful. She gives the Assyrians some intel, and they hold off on attacking for a few days.

In that time, Judith gets under the General’s skin, and he invites her over for dinner. He just keeps drinking and drinking and drinking. When he’s zonked, Judith decapitates him, stuffs the head in the maidservant’s food bag, and they sneak back to Bethulia. Holoferne’s head is stuck on the walls, and the Assyrians scatter.

This is considered an apocryphal story, not historical.

Gentileschi came back to this subject a lot. Five of these paintings survive. Here’s one of her more famous versions:

Gentileschi was one of the most accomplished Baroque painters. She made this when she was 17: Susanna and the Elders.

Her father, Orazio Gentileschi, started out as a Mannerist but after the wave of Caravaggio’s influence spread, he took on a more naturalistic style — Artemisia also painted in a naturalistic style. When she was 18, her father hired his friend Tassi as her tutor. Tassi raped Artemisia. There is a lot to this story, and I highly recommend the book “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art” by Mary D. Garrard.

To summarize, Gentileschi continued sleeping with Tassi after the rape, in hopes that he would marry her to “restore her dignity.” Enlightenment, sure, relatively speaking. A glowbug in a moonless forest still makes things brighter. After 7 months, Orazio took Tassi to court, on the basis that Artemisia was a virgin – otherwise there would have been no case. Gentileschi testified while being tortured with thumbscrews – basically a vice for your thumbs – to keep her honest. In Mary D. Garrard’s book is the actual testimony from the case, in which Gentileschi describes tossing a sword at Tassi after he raped her.

Anyway, read the book. To jump to the end; they won. Which basically meant Tassi was sentenced to prison for one year. Time of which he served: zilch.

Back to Judith slaying Holofernes. Still an early work, between 1614-1620. Chiaroscuro up the wazoo – the three figures are melting out of an inky black hole. Judith and her maidservant’s expressions stolid, but not melodramatic. They could be butchering a pig. Holofernes looks like he has accepted his fate, or is just too drunk to realize the extent of it. To represent Holofernes she used the visage of Tassi, her rapist.

“Whether swallowed or inhaled, all members of the cyanide family kill in the same way–they shut down the body’s ability to carry or absorb oxygen”

“…most murderers tended to avoid cyanide–the poison left a too-obvious trail of evidence. The resulting corpse would be a textbook study in violent death, marked by bruising discoloration, twisted by the last convulsions, often eerily scented with cyanide’s characteristic warning perfume, a faint, fruity scent of almonds.”

Almonds, peach/apricot pits, blue green algae, lots of plants contain some level of cyanide that can be concentrated down. But cyanides became much more readily available after Heinrich Diesbach, German Painter, chemist, inventor, invented Prussian Blue in 1704.

The original recipe; “dried blood, potash (potassium carbonate), and green vitriol (iron sulfate), [stewed] over an open flame.” He called it Berlin blue, and the English later named it Prussian Blue. This was the first modern synthetic paint. Cheap to make, lightfast, nontoxic, and a very strong color.

In the 1770’s or 80s, a Swedish chemist used Prussian blue in a concoction that yielded a very potent acid (Prussic or hydrocyanic acid). This also resulted in a gas called Hydrogen Cyanide, which could be made into poisonous cyanide salts – all of which turned out to have industrial uses.

More from TPH:

“Hydrogen cyanide (gas), if it was distilled into a liquid, a mere drop, a raindrop-sized dose (about 50 milligrams) could be fatal.”

“pesticides, explosives, engraving, and tempering steel, as a disinfecting agent, in creating colorful dyes, … in mining, as well as in photography, electroplating, metal polishing.” Cyanotypes, blueprints.

“Pharmaceutical-grade Prussian blue in particular is used for patients who have ingested thallium or radioactive caesium. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an adult male can eat at least 10g of Prussian blue per day without serious harm.”

“To date, the Entombment of Christ, dated 1709 by Pieter van der Werff (Picture Gallery, Sanssouci, Potsdam) is the oldest known painting where Prussian blue was used. Around 1710, painters at the Prussian court were already using the pigment. At around the same time, Prussian blue arrived in Paris, where Antoine Watteau and later his successors Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater used it in their paintings.”